


Retrograde

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Amnesia, Anger, Angst, Betrayal, F/M, Interrogation, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Spoilers, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 06:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: Simon wakes up and the world has changed. It's a shame he doesn't understand his part in that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the end of Season 2.

Every inch of him hurts.

Simon groans when he moves, burning pain through his chest and stomach and, well, everywhere actually. He doesn’t think he’s ever hurt this much, not even when he ran his first marathon. Not even when he’d kept running through torn muscles and shin splints until he’d finally been forced to slow down a bit.

He pushes himself to his feet. He does it slowly and hates the crack of bone. He tests his weight on his legs. They twinge, but not too badly. Or maybe his head is just hurting enough to overshadow other pains. He can’t tell anymore. He must’ve hit his head when he…

What had he been doing?

His stumbling steps ease as he walks a few steps, as if bones and muscles slip back into place. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know why he’s there. There’s trees around him which doesn’t narrow it down much and that’s weird in itself. He hadn’t been near the woods. He doesn’t think so anyway. It’s all fuzzy.

He remembers the zoms. That he remembers with hideous clarity. A horde of them, grey and awful like the legions of hell that his nan had told him of. He remembers Abel, the steadily growing population and expanding walls. He remembers Sam and Eight and Janine, her smile and her hands when she works.

He remembers running.

There’s nothing that explains why he was there or what he was doing. Fog and pain, that was it. He must’ve hit his head.

He can smell something burning. It’s probably not the best plan to head towards it, but he’s not got that many options right now with his headset nowhere to be found. At least this gives him a direction.

It turns out to be a terrible idea. The place, a squat, grey building, is swarming with zombies. The fences are down. Poor bastards.

He follows the smoke and the smell, skirting the edges of the compound until he sees what it is. Looks like a helicopter. No, a plane. He can see the wings. Well, he thinks they’re wings. It’s hard to tell when they’re on fire.

There’re people down there too, and he slinks over to the edge of the trees to get a better look. Some of them have got New Canton written on the backs of their sort-of-but-not-quite-uniforms. That’s not good. What’re New Canton doing out here? Probably going through the remains of whatever settlement this was before it’s even stopped burning. Pretty ghoulish. The thought of them picking over Abel like that makes him feel sick.

There’s the crack of a branch breaking. Simon turns, ready to bolt. Janine needs to hear about this.

There’s a gun pointed at him, right between the eyes.

“Runner Three,” The man holding it says and Simon nearly sags in relief.

“Jordan! Thank god. We have to get back. Janine needs to know about this, mate.”

The gun isn’t lowered. Jordan had never been all laughs and smiles but his expression hardens further. “Keep your hands where I can see them. You’re wanted for questioning.”

Simon’s eyes widen, flick between the gun and Jordan’s face. He knows he’s a good shot. Even without the gun he’s pretty sure Jordan would have no problem snapping his neck. Finally he manages a strangled laugh, but his eyes never leave the gun. “Right. Night joke Jordan.”

“It isn’t a joke,” Jordan replies. “You’re wanted for treason Lauchlan.”

His mouth is dry, blood chilled. “What? I don’t-”

“Stop playing innocent! You sold us out to Van Ark!”

There’s utter viciousness in Jordan’s voice and Simon takes a step backwards. His legs feel weak, his head spins. He can feel the blood draining from his face as a roaring, hissing noise assaults his ears.

The next thing he knows is blackness.

————-

He normally wakes up early with the sun or with his alarm clock. All the better to fit in a quick 10K before work. That hadn’t changed, even when the apocalypse had changed everything.

Today he wakes up when he hits the ground, and, as he’s still coming to, gets a penlight shone right into his eyes.

It hurts like crazy, a deep throbbing bubble in his head. He tries to pull away, to protest, but nothing’s working right.

They let his eyes shut again. The headache doesn’t stop.

“He’s responding fine,” a woman sayd. That accent. American. Maxine. That’s Maxine! He must be at Abel!

He tries to speak, tries to do anything, but his body is horribly sluggish and won’t listen to him. Hot frustration pricks at his eyes. Helpless. He’s helpless. All this work, all this training and he _can’t move_.

“Then what’s wrong with him, Doctor Myers?” Janine. Is that Janine? She sounds really worried. Maybe she’s not as cold as she seems. “Jordan said that he just passed out. And he seemed confused.”

Damn right he’s confused.

“It could still be a concussion. It could be the result of what Runner Ten did.” Runner Ten? Ten was dead, wasn’t he? Really dead, not Grey dead like so many others. “Or…”

“Or what?”

“Well, we don’t know what Van Ark’s treatments involved. I can’t even guess what effect they might have had on him.”

“I see.”

He’s glad Janine does because Simon really really doesn’t have a clue right now. He sucks in a deep breath and forces his fingers to move. They do, sort of. But it comes easier after that and then it’s a flood of sensation and burn like his veins are lit on fire. He thinks he screams. Hard to tell.

When it stops, when he can breathe again, and opens his eyes, Janine looks down at him along the barrel of a gun.

Second time today. He could’ve gone a lifetime without seeing that even once.

She looks angry. Not like, screaming and hitting angry. Not spitting curses and pinching and condemning him to hell angry. He knows what that looks like. He can deal with that.

Cold angry. That’s scarier.

“Runner Three,” she says, her voice ice and stone, “I have some questions for you.”

“Janine,” Maxine interrupts, although she gives him a dubious look, a wariness in her gaze that he’s not sure why he deserves, “we don’t know wh-”

“Thankyou, Doctor Myers. I will take it from here.”

“I- alright. I need to check him over though. If anything changes…”

“I will call for you. Yes.” She doesn’t even look away.

There’s lines around her eyes and her mouth that he’d never noticed before. It makes his chest ache and he doesn’t know why.

Maxine leaves, closes the door (and it’s a not a room, he realises, it’s a cell) behind her and it’s just the two of them.

“Janine,” he begins.

“Stop, Simon. I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want to hear you lie again.”

He blinks at her, brow furrowing. She’s never called him Simon before. It’s always Runner Three. Maybe Mr Lauchlan if she’s being less formal. Never Simon. It throws him, strikes him dumb.

“How much did you tell Van Ark?”

He shakes his head, giving a lost little smile of abject confusion. “I don’t- I didn’t tell him anything. I swear!”

Her finger shifts on the trigger and he flinches back.

“I heard your confession, Simon. I saw what you did. You can’t just pretend that this is a misunderstanding.”

“But it is!” Simon protests. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I wouldn’t know Van Ark if I fell over him so the idea of me telling him stuff is… it’s stupid, Janine.”

“Pathetic,” she hisses and for a moment he really thinks she’s gonna pull the trigger. “You really expect to just wriggle out of this? Then again, I suppose you always have been a snake.”

He laughs at that, a bitter sound, the kind that he tries so hard to keep drowned down inside him. He doesn’t like her talking like that. She’s always been spiky until you get close to her and he doesn’t know how he knows that but it hurts to hear her voice so close to cracking. “Well, you’re not the first woman to say that but… I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Please Janine.”

Something of what he says must get through because she lowers the gun a fraction. His shoulders slump in relief.

Her eyes are narrowed in suspicion and she looks him over. “Simon, what is the last thing you remember?”

“Before I woke up in the woods and nearly got my head blown off by Jordan y’mean?”

“Yes, before that.” She really doesn’t sound amused.

“Well I…” He frowns, chewing on his lip to try to remember. “I think… New Canton was gonna raid us,” he begins, glancing up at her. Her expression doesn’t tell him anything. “But then the zoms came. An army of them. I distracted a bunch, headed out to the pavilion. I climbed up there and then… an explosion,” he adds more quietly. “I remember an explosion.”

When he looks back at her, she looks puzzled, and she stares at him like he’s a bit of machinery that she can’t figure out how to fix. “Simon. That was months ago.”

That roaring, hissing noise is in his head again, and he feels the bottom drop out of his world.


End file.
